


The Day He Met Him

by frosty600



Series: Alternatively Verse [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Freshman Will, M/M, Older Hannibal/Younger Will, Pre-Slash, Senior Hannibal, brief depiction of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27207076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frosty600/pseuds/frosty600
Summary: Hannibal would never forget the day he met him.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Alternatively Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2005699
Comments: 4
Kudos: 136





	The Day He Met Him

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate Meeting A/U  
> I may do a series of interconnected oneshots and fics in this verse.  
> We'll see :) 
> 
> I don't own Hannibal

Hannibal didn’t look up from what he was doing as his ears caught the sound of quiet shuffling steps approaching him preceding the sharp scent of anxiety intermingled with a thin layer of sweat accumulated throughout the day. A scent that mixed somewhat unpleasantly with the cheap male deodorant the approaching boy had chosen to wear.

He frowned at the impending interruption, pen still moving steadily across the open page of his notebook, his impeccable penmanship flowing pleasingly across the lined paper as he expanded on the shorthand notes he’d taken during his classes.

The appropriate textbook open by his elbow. More for aesthetic purposes than any real need to consult it. He’d already thoroughly read the appropriate chapter.

Rude to disturb a studying student. A senior especially. He continued to ignore the presence of the anxious boy. A freshman, judging by just how anxious he was about approaching a senior. Hannibal more than content to ignore the younger boy until he gathered the courage to speak, or even better went away.

Uncharitable of him, perhaps. But he didn’t remotely feel like concerning himself with the problems of an underclassmen.

An unsteady breath was taken. Fortifying himself? Hannibal mused with disinterest, pen still moving along the page.

“Could I sit here?” came a lilting voice, soft with nerves, and a Southern drawl that had Hannibal’s pen pausing with how it caressed his ears.

Not an unpleasant accent at all.

Still, the question irked. The tone hadn’t been demanding but had an edge of rudeness. A lack of manners he found displeasing. Especially when… he swept his eyes over the school’s somewhat lacking library. Though Hannibal had had to make do with worse in his adolescence. Empty tables confirmed.

He turned his gaze to the boy who’d approached him and stalled, the breath he’d taken to speak lost to him as he took in a hunching in on itself slender frame, garbed in clothes that had seen better days and clearly three sizes too big for him. Dry chapped lips, bitten raw. Cheeks rounded with baby fat that had yet to fall away completely but would soon give way to puberty. Sweet unruly, poorly cared for, Botticelli curls framing his face. A nose freckled from exposure to the sun, the slightly dry from the same. But it was none of these things that stole his breath.

It was the deep arctic blue of the boys eyes that were desperately trying to hide behind ill-fitting frames that were sitting crooked on his nose. Like they’d been bent out of shape, perhaps by a fall and an attempt to fix them hadn’t quite succeeded. Eyes that weren’t even making a facsimile of an attempt to meet his own.

He should find it rude. But the emotion doesn’t come or dies before being fully formed. Instead, the boy is charming as he stands before him. Feet shuffling a little awkwardly under his continued scrutiny.

Had he been staring long? It felt like only a second had passed, but then. It was easy to get lost in the beauty of something. And the boy, awkwardness and all, was a beauty.

“I’m sorry,” the nameless boy whispered, words coming almost so softly that Hannibal had to lean towards him to catch them, “I know you didn’t wanna be disturbed. It’s just I need to get my homework done tonight and my da,” the boy shifted the strap of his worn shoulder bag, “He isn’t coming to pick me up till much later tonight.”

Hannibal sat back in his seat, eyeing the nervous boy who still adamantly refused to meet Hannibal’s gaze, “So far. I’m not hearing an issue.”

The boy shuffled his feet, body shifting, tensing, fingers clenching around the strap that had been painstakingly stitched back together with sewing thread, as if bracing for rejection before chapped lips parted to speak again, “They won’t let me,” was breathed; barbed with shame and bitter dejection.

Hannibal’s gaze flicked over behind the boy’s shoulder, eyes thinning with displeasure as his gaze alighted on a trio, he was familiar with and took grate pains to avoid association with. They were obnoxious. Not fit to consume the oxygen they breathed. Exactly the type to prey on those they saw as lesser than themselves.

Easy prey.

His gaze flicked back to the hunching boy before him. Eyes once more taking in his worn oversized clothes, holes in the knees. Hems fraying from dragging along the ground and being stepped on by runners that had also seen better days. And the bookbag that had been patched back together in various ways.

Yes, he could see why that particular trio had singled the boy out. Coupled with his, frankly angelic features. Cherubic with youth. They would have zoned in on him immediately as a primed target for their vulgarities. 

The senior deliberated another moment. Letting the beautiful boy squirm with uncertainty as he awaited his judgement.

Hannibal shifted, reaching for his other textbooks he’d piled on the table. His table. To discourage anyone joining him. He had a reputation for not wanting to be disturbed whilst studying, but there was still the odd student that consider them to be friendly that had on occasion joined him. Much to his displeasure.

“If you are quiet,” he said as he slipped the books into his bag and out of the way, “You may join me.”

The boy let out a soft sigh of relief, some of the tension leaving him, “Thank you,” he murmured as he sat, pulling his notebooks from his bag. These too, Hannibal noted were scuffed, creased as if they’d been tossed about.

The boy pulled a pen out of the bag’s depths, and Hannibal couldn’t help but internally cringe at the chewed cap and end of the pen.

He hoped the boy refrained from chewing it whilst at Hannibal’s table. The boy stared intently at a separate page. Eyes scanning it as he read, pen waggling between his fingers with a continued nervous energy.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before?”

The boy jumped, eyes meeting Hannibal’s for the first time in his surprise, before darting away as if pained by the contact. Pen flying from between his fingers and across the table. Stopping when it hit against Hannibal’s open notebook. He flushed, mumbling an apology as Hannibal pinched the chewed pen between his fingers and held it out to him.

“I’m new,” he muttered almost into his collar as he looked down after he took his pen back, immediately going back to waggling it. This time so fast, the chewed end blurred.

“Not fond of eye contact, are you?” Hannibal observed and noted how the boy immediately stiffened pen abruptly stilling.

“No,” came the terse reply, the boy frowning down at his page. Topic clearly closed in the boy’s mind.

Hannibal felt the urge to prod. Poke at the topic that the boy clearly didn’t want to discuss, curiosity peaked. He swallowed it down. The school year had barely started, he’d have time to sate his curiosity.

“I’m Hannibal Lecter.”

The boy blinked, head raising, eyes looking past Hannibal’s shoulder, “Will Graham,” he replied after a moment. Like he’d been weighing if Hannibal was really asking for his name.

“Nice to meet you, Will. “

Will nodded and looked back down at his homework.

“How’ve you been settling in?”

Will shifted minutely, posture closing off, clearly trying to discourage further conversation. Perhaps regretting imposing on Hannibal’s _kindness_.

“Made any friends among your fellow year mates?”

He saw the boy’s jaw clench, before he looked in Hannibal’s direction again, brow furrowed, eyes glittering, alive with emotion, “I don’t make friends,” he spat, before turning sharply back to his books.

Shoulders hunched.

“That’s hardly true,” Hannibal interjected and saw those tense defensive shoulders hunch more, “You’ve just made a friend in me.”

Will jerked, head coming up sharply, eyes wide stunned, before blinking and narrowing in something akin to offence, “I don’t need pity.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t deal in pity,” Hannibal replied smoothy.

Will turned back to him, brow still furrow with suspicion, startlingly blue eyes wary as the crept up to his cheekbone and then skittered up to his eyes and _held_.

After a moment Will blinked in surprise and looked away, brow furrowed almost in confusion now, a mild flush darkening his dry cheeks. Tongue darting out to wet chapped lips. His voice when it came a moment later was tentative, raspy as if his throat was suddenly bone dry, but warmed by a subtle note of hope, “Ok.”

Hannibal smiled, a small, but extremely rare, genuine smile that showed more in the slight creases around his eyes than the curve of his lips.

Will’s eyes turned to him again, a smile lighting his face in return. A smile that showed a brief teasing glimpse of white teeth, before he turned back to his homework. Setting the ball of his pen to paper with a slightly shaky grip.

Hannibal spent another moment watching him, before reluctantly returning to his notes, pen gliding across paper once more.

The two worked in silence. Hannibal staying later than he’d originally intended as he sat with Will, who worked diligently, posture abysmal. Tongue occasionally poking out from between his teeth in concentration.

Until a chimed sounded softly from Will’s bag and the boy, picked up his things not bothering to check what the message was or who it was from. He shoved his things into his bag, before looking at Hannibal, chewing his bottom lip uncertainly for a moment, before murmuring uncertainly, “See you around?”

Hannibal smiled again, “Definitely, Will.”

Will shot him a brief but bright smile at that, before he turned and hurried away. Hannibal watched him, finding that he couldn’t not.

His expression, unbeknownst to him, fond in it’s regard of the small boy’s back. The fondness fell away. Swiftly replaced with a carefully blank expression as one of the trio who had apparently been waiting for his chance, shoved Will as he hurried past.

Will hit the ground, his things scattering about him as they spilled out his bag, glasses knocked askew.

The trio burst into uproarious laughter.

Hannibal’s hands clenched, anger burned, hot then cold, then hot again. Watching with sharp eyes as Will scrambled up, gathering his things like he was used to this kind of harassment. Was resigned to it.

He didn’t look back at Hannibal as he continued on his way out of the library shoulders slumped once more.

Hannibal turned his gaze to the trio who were busy slapping themselves on the back, braying like pigs fit for roasting. One of them happened to turn, catching Hannibal looking at them. Something of his displeasure must have shown on his face.

Enough for the pig to sense danger.

He hit his friends, nodded in Hannibal’s direction and the three underclassmen, quieted and then swiftly left the library. Their volume picking up again, the moment they passed through the library doors.

Hannibal took a breath, held it, and released it slowly, before he got to his feet and packed his things into his bag.

His thoughts far from his notes now. The trio, who’d been mere irritants before – now, firmly held a place on a very singular list.


End file.
